Jermyn Street Glitter

Another quick Christmas mani posting.

This is Jermyn Street Glitter from Nails Inc.

 

It's a special glitter mini version produced for a recent QVC TSV. With all the recent work madness I missed the TSV but really wanted to try the glitter version of Jermyn Street.

Thankfully my lovely BFF gifted it to me for Christmas. I didn't open her gifts until yesterday but wanted to try this straight away.

Jermyn Street is one of those mushroomy/taupey colours and the original is a defnite favourite of mine. The glitter in this version is silver and pretty fine but enough to lift the colour.

In comparison here's a very old and messy shot of the original Jermyn Street



And one of my first posts was a taupe comparison including Jermyn Street and $OPI Metro Chic

nails inc is a UK based nail bar chain who also sell their polish & treatments through stores, online and QVC. They began in London and all polishes are named after London streets. I've never had one of their mani's but I do have a *lot* of their polishes!

Jermyn Street is mostly known for it's gentleman's outfitters, a place for men to buy shirts, both made to measure and off the peg.

Teal Creme Comparisons

After being inspired by the lovely Nikki's review of Totally Teal from Boots No7 I got hold of a bottle for myself.

It's a gorgeous teal creme but while swatching it I had a sense of deja vu, didn't I have another colour that was very similar?

So I dug out some bottles and did a quick comparison. First up, the bottle shot
 
l-r No7 Totally Teal, Illamasqua Muse, Nails Inc Portland Place and Ciaté Paint Pots in Superficial

They're all the same colour family, but Muse looks a bit lighter

 
 
On the nail it's the same story, Muse is significantly different and lighter. As for the other three, Totally Teal (index) and Superficial (pinkie) look very dupey. Portland Place is greener and more jellyish although this was more visible IRL. This was 2 coats of each, but Portland Place was the least opaque.

I left the skittles on overnight and the next day remembered the Nails Inc Hills collection had a similar colour, Rodeo Drive.

So I replaced Muse with Rodeo Drive (and freshened up the others)

 

So now l-r is Totally Teal, Rodeo Drive, Portland Place and Superficial

Rodeo Drive is more dupey than Muse but is slightly more navy toned. The closest dupes are still Totally Teal and Superficial although in these pics Superficial looks a tad darker - not much in it though!

So I probably don't need both. Price wise they're not worlds apart, the RRP for Ciaté Paint Pots is probably more at £9 compared with No7 at £6.25 but I got mine in a deal and didn't pay that much.

Update: Just found another comparison for Superficial on Parokeets site: Essence – Meet You In Budapest vs. Ciate Paint Pots – Superficial

Christmas NOTD

Hope you're all having a lovely Christmas?

Here's a quick Christmas NOTD to share
 
 
It's another one of those L&B glitters from the cheapo Sainsbury's set. This is two coats of the mauve glitter (they don't seem to have names or numbers) over Illamasqua Velocity.

I previously showed you the black glitter - There's also a clear holo glitter and and plain red creme that I haven't tried yet

Nails Inc Winter Party Collection - Part IV

I think I saved the best till last, although this is a stunning collection that's a tough call, this is Heddon Street, rather pedestrianly described as a plum shimmer, which does not begin to describe how gorgeous this polish is. It's definitely a 'lit from within'.


Shade

 
Sun

 
I had trouble capturing the full effect in pictures, hence so many!

Click on the pics for huge versions and more wonderfullness.


Bottle shot

 
Close-up to show the utter awesomeness

In summary this is a fantastic collection, every one is pretty, Christmassy, easy to apply and unique to my collection. I love it.

Nails Inc Christmas Party Collection - Part III

Part III is Kingly Street - pale silvery grey polish with silver sparkles.

 
Shade

 
Sun

Opaque in two coats, this is a sparkle rather than a glitter, but it's lovely and very glitzy. Again two coats and good application - is anyone sensing a theme yet?!

Nails Inc - The Winter Party Collection - part II

The second part of the Nails Inc Winter Party Collection stars The Mall, a deep metallic violet

 
Sun

 
Shade

This is another stunner, only two coats and great application.

I did have to tweak these a little to get the purple more purple but this is now pretty colour accurate.

Stay tuned for part III tomorrow

Nails Inc - Winter Party Collection - part 1

The Nails Inc Winter Party Collection is a collection of four polishes and I've gotta say after the disappointment of the Hills Collection, these restored my, actually not that dented, faith in Nails Inc.

So on with the official descriptions from Nails Inc

Petticoat Lane - cerise glitter
The Mall – deep metallic violet
Kingly Street – silver glitter
Heddon Street - plum shimmer

Don't they even sound gorgeous?

I'm gonna tease you with these and post them individually.

First up is Petticoat Lane

 
 
Petticoat Lane is a raspberry jelly liberally sprinkled with a variety of pink glitters.

 

I would strongly suggest clicking on these for big versions and a closer look at the gorgeousness.

Tomorrow I bring you The Mall, a fabulous purple shimmer that is positively royal in it's lushness.

L&B Sparkle polish

Gawd, no posts for two weeks - sorry folks. It's been a frantic time, with work and personal life.

Hopefully I'll have more time to post this week, in the meantime here are some shots of recent manicures, or to be more accurate; me slapping a coat of cheapo holo glittery goodness over existing manicures! [I've had no time for mani's either]

 
 


 


I'll post more about these polishes soon but the glitter/holo topcoat is from a 4 piece set I picked up in Sainsbury's (a UK supermarket). The set is 1 creme (red) and 3 holo glitters. All of these pics show the black glitter layered over existing dark mani's (Nails Inc Berkeley Square and a burgundy/aubergine shimmer from Black Up). The polish base is pretty thin so this is best kept as a layering polish. For me it's been a lifesaver to slap over an existing tip-worn mani for a fast freshen up.

ASOS Paint Pots by Ciaté

I spotted these new polishes while browsing on ASOS (always a dangerous activity!) I've got quite a selection of the original Ciaté paint pots so of course I couldn't resist trying one of these

 
 
I picked Mary-Kate, a black creme with gold shimmer (and a touch of blue/pink shimmer too)

Application was good but this is one of those polishes that eats topcoat! This is 2 coats of polish and 3 coats of Seche Vite and it's still not madly glossy!

I like the fact that they'e carried the sweet bottle bow across to this line too.

 
Click the pic for a bigger version to see the shimmer.

Overall I really liked this polish.

Anyone else tried any of these?

H&M Polishes

 

I picked these up a couple of months ago at H&M on Oxford Street. I didn't know H&M sold nail polish so I was pretty excited to spot these and squeeed at the colours!

 
 
First up is Enchantress Emma, a turquoise blue with blue shimmer.

Gorgeous colour but this was very slow to dry and this is 3 coats and I still have VNL


 

Next is Fashionista, a mid royal purple shimmer. I *love* this colour, it's just beautiful and this is only 2 coats. This is definitely the star of the show for me.

 


Finally - Sophisticated Susanna, a bright coral with slight shimmer. Again this is
2 coats.

Overall the bright, unique (for me) colours and the right amount of shimmer in these polishes compensated for the minor application issues.

I can't remember how much they were, I think less than £5 each though

New Brand Compulsion

I have a compulsion, not just for nail polish, but to buy nail polish brands I don't have or haven't seen before. No doubt close cousin to the compulsion to buy first issues of magazines and why removal men will always curse and mutter under their breath as they have to move *another* heavy box full of magazines!

So the other week I found myself browsing on the Debenhams site in the beauty section. For non-UK readers Debenhams is a mid-market department store that sells a variety of branded and own-brand goods. I don't usually shop there for beauty items, I'm not really a high-end beauty gal and the only nail polish I'd seen was Nails Inc at scary full price!

Out of habit I did a search on nail polish which threw up lots of exciting (for me!) new brands.

First up is Urban Retreat. According to their website Urban Retreat are a pioneer in luxury hair and beauty, a beauty paradise with a vast range of lavish treatments, services, and products from some of the finest brands in the world, all under one roof.

Who knew? I certainly didn't. What I did glean was that the polishes were created by Leighton Denny, probably the UK's most high profile nail technician who has his own eponymous polish brand, one I don't own, yet. I just can't get past his prices, they retail around £10 and there's never been a colour I just *had* to have.

All the Urban Retreat colours were half price at £5 for two bottles.

So I ordered up all three duos, Metallic, Glam and Classic. Each contains two 8ml bottles in complimentary colours.

I've only swatched one so far, from the Glam collection called 'UR Envied'

 


It's a bright fuchsia pink shimmer with a strong purple flash. It's a nice bright colour, not my usual style and made me feel a bit 80's.

This was two coats, application wasn't great as the brush was too long and somehow splayed at the end and combined with the slightly gloopy polish made it all quite hard work. I felt like I was fighting the polish all the time and I did a lot of muttering about the *big fat brush*.

Unfortunately this has made me less likely to invest in Leighton Denny - surely they have better brushes?

Green Glitter - My Bonfire Night mani

Just a quick post to show the glittery green mani I wore over the weekend to my family's annual bonfire night party.

 
 

It's two coats of the awesome Barielle Date Night with two coats of Nyx Lime Sparkle. I really like how this turned out and couldn't stop looking at my nails. As ever, click for *really* big pics but don't look too close at the cuticles - my hand cream/cuticle oil/lemony flutter habit has uninhabited itself.

I'm sure most folk reading this will already be aware of Date Night but for the uninitiated, Date night is a fantastic emerald green shimmer that Barielle released in 2008 as part of the Fall Affair collection. I was lucky enough to find these in a CVS when I was in the US earlier this year. It applies flawlessly, dries fast and is opaque in 2 coats.

NYX is another US brand but this one I picked up on my cheapie haul the other weekend. It was one of the most expensive cheapies at £3.30 but totally worth it.

Unfortunately over the weekend my middle fingernail (which I was patching with a succession of silk wraps & ibd - if there's a way to make them last longer than 24hrs I need to know?!) broke off completely and I haven't got the heart to file all the others down to match.

Cheapies

Last weekend I was over in Slough. It's fair to say that Slough is not the most high end shopping experience, so after splurging at TK Maxx (TJ Maxx to US readers) I went cheapie hunting and boy, did I haul! I picked up 20 polishes, all of which were less than £3 each and most were less than £2. Some brands I'd heard of (NYX, Star Gazer, Wet n' Wild, Sleek and W7) and some were new to me (X-Plode, Make-up Academy and Go) and a mixture of US and UK brands.

First up is Mystery from Make-up Academy






It's a slightly grey toned dark blue shimmer with the blue leaning towards Air Force blue and some fine silver glitteriness.

This is 2 coats with topcoat. For a polish that cost £1.99 the application was pretty sweet, the brush was a good length and shape and the polish was opaque in two coats.

I really like this colour, the shimmer is good and I like the fact that it's not your bog standard deep blue shimmer, of which I have too many to mention!

I bought this (and two other colours) from Savers, a discount drugstore and I'm assuming it's their own brand and is unique to them.

Salzburg Haul

Apologies for the lack of posting - As well as the ongoing building work (see Builder's Tea), I've been away on a business trip to Salzburg

I was hoping to pickup some unusual polish but limited trawling of the pharmacies and nail bars near my hotel only yielded a small selection of OPI DS and some Essies - all of which were madly expensive. The euro exchange rate isn't good news for Brits shopping in Europe.

But then in the airport on the way home I was idly walking round the duty free shop, past the teddy bear's wearing leiderhosen and the chocolate Mozart balls when I stumbled upon a small nail polish stand where I spotted these beauties.

 

They're only minis but check out the awesome flakiness (click for huge pics) - if these apply anything like the bottle I'll be very pleased.

And they were only 3 euros each which didn't seem a bad price.

I think Alessandro are a German brand - anyone got any experience of these?

Urban Decay - ID

I'd been waiting for the right colour to try my bottle of Urban Decay ID over and Beverley Hills from The Hills Collection by Nails Inc looked like a good choice

  
 

Here it is in sunlight to show the awesome sparkles (click for bigger pics).

ID is a pinkish coral with huge amounts of fine gold, green and pink sparkle. It's sheer though so you'd need lots of coats for opacity on its own, or much better to layer it.

Nails Inc - The Hills Collection

So I bought this collection because it had new colours, not because I'm some huge fan of The Hills, in fact I don't know what The Hills is, other than a TV show!

I tweeted that I was swatching this collection even though I didn't know what The Hills was and this was the response from my pal, Sam:

"OMG you're like, SO not with the programme, literally. It's like a totally kewl reality show set in LA. Durrrr"

Thanks for the update Sam, I think that tells me all I need to know about the show and why I don't watch it!

On with the swatches...

First up is Rodeo Drive, a dark teal, this is in shade

and in sun


This is 2 coats and a great colour. I'm hoping do some comparisons soon but it's definitely no dupe for Illamasqua Muse or Ciate Superficial which are both lighter.

Beverley Hills.

 

Shade

and this is in sunlight

Nails inc call it a raspberry red, to me it was more of a coral with a slight jelly finish

This is 3 coats and I still have some visible VNL.

Next up is Hollywood, my first neon.

Like most neons this dries with a level of matte finish, in this case more of a satin than true matte.

The true intensity of the neon is also impossible to capture. In reality it's a much brighter pink than the photo shows!

This was 3 coats as it was a bit streaky.

I also popped on a top coat to check out the shiny version

Last up is Melrose Avenue

This is a dark blurple, Nails Inc call it an indigo which seems right. I did tweak this a little to get the colour more accurate, like most blurples it photographed more blue than the real colour.

Formula on this wasn't great, I had to do 3 coats which is almost unheard of with Nails Inc.

In fact in general I'd say this collection wasn't up to Nails Inc usual very high standard. A couple took 3 coats to be even and opaque. Some great colours but overall not a great collection.